CORVALLIS, OR: I am coming to you today from lovely Corvallis, where Melanie and I enjoyed a rare evening to ourselves last night. Melanie is now running an ultra-marathon through the forested hills west of town. She expects to take 7 or 8 hours to finish. Let’s see if I can finish this update before she’s done.
Those of you familiar with Corvallis probably already know this, but Corvallis is a very nice town. I have not ventured much off the Highway 99W corridor before this trip. I don’t know if I’ve even been on the OSU campus proper until last evening when Melanie gave me a quick driving tour. My motel window looks out over the track and a softball field. Across the street is Reser Stadium.
EFL | ||||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
Old Detroit Wolverines | 46 | 23 | .672 | — | 361.6 | 252.4 |
Haviland Dragons | 42 | 27 | .615 | 4 | 333.6 | 264.5 |
Cottage Cheese | 39 | 28 | .576 | 6.8 | 304.4 | 256.0 |
Peshastin Pears | 38 | 30 | .553 | 8.3 | 289.1 | 258.8 |
Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 35 | 29 | .542 | 9.2 | 305.4 | 280.6 |
Flint Hill Tornadoes | 35 | 34 | .510 | 11.2 | 322.1 | 316.8 |
Canberra Kangaroos | 32 | 37 | .460 | 14.6 | 362.5 | 392.2 |
Kaline Drive | 32 | 37 | .460 | 14.7 | 273.7 | 297.9 |
Portland Rosebuds | 24 | 44 | .355 | 21.8 | 269.1 | 365.3 |
Old Detroit: L, 6 – 7. .234, .260, .468; 4.3 ip, 3 er. New Wolverine rookie Lance McCullers faced the M’s last night. I was rooting for the M’s wholeheartedly anyway. This was helped by the fact that I allocated all of McCllers innings to the M’s minor leagues.
Haviland: L, 3 – 4. .211, .286, .342; 6.7 ip 3 er. Did I tell you that we got up before 6 am to get Melanie to her race? So now I’m drifting off to sleep in the middle of writing this update. See, this is harder than you thought. I bet Melanie doesn’t have to struggle to stay awake and coherent .
Cottage: “W”, 1 – 5. .211 .250 .342; 21.7 ip, 9 er. Ben Zobrist Comeback Watch: 2 for 5 with a double and a homer. Now batting .254, .362, .525 for June and .248, .329 .450 for the season.
Peshastin: W 2, L (-1); 5 – 1. .31o .375 .357; 10.7 ip, 1 er. Jay Bruce Redemption Watch: 1 for 3 with a homer and a walk. Now batting .262, .375, .492 for June and .233, .341, .430 overall. Wow. Who knew that Jay Bruce and Ben Zobrist were the same player? (Did I mention Chris Sale’s 8 ip, 0 er, 14 K, 0 W effort last night?)
Pittsburgh: w, 4 -3. .306 .316 .444; 9 ip, 2 er. So which is the catcher of the future: Tyler Flowers (2 for 3 with a homer, rated 6.6 at catcher) or Blake Swihart (2 for 4 with a double, rated a compassionate 4.3 at catcher)?
Flint Hill: L, 2 – 4. .222, .326, .333; 1.3 ip, 0 er. Guess who is leading the Tornados in offense this season. Joc Pederson (.249, .385, .529). Guess who has the best ERA. Robbie Ray: 1.09. See? These are interesting players. You CAN produce EFL-class headlines — but not when Pederson goes a plain vanilla 1 for 4, and Ray doesn’t even pitch. Am I supposed to write about Johnny Giavotella’s 2 for 2 with a double and a walk? Ok, what should I write about it?
Canberra: W, 9 – 5. .412 .474 .441; 4 ip, 0 er. Edwin Jackson Come-Back Watch: 3 ip, 0 er. For June: 12.3 ip, 2 er. For the Season: 25 ip, 7 er, 2.52 ERA. Who knew?
Kaline: W, 6 – 6. .333, .381, .564. 7 ip, 5 er. I should like Justin Turner. I had Justin Turner last year and enjoyed his great stats as a part-time player. But this year he’s taking AB away from Alex Guerrero, Old Detroit’s only DH this month. So when Turner goes 3 for 3 with two doubles and a homer and a hbp, I have trouble taking any pleasure in it.
Portland: L, 1 – 10. .267 .267 .267. 2.67 ip, 2.67 er. No, wait, think I dozed off again. Here’s another try:
Portland: L, 1 – 10. .267 .267 .267. 7 ip, 7 er. I realize this look just as suspiciously neat, but I assure you, I stayed awake all the way through that. The Rosebuds didn’t walk, get hbp, or hit any sacrifices. They carefully stopped at first on every hit — even Mookie Betts, who had 4 of the Rosebuds’ 8 singles. And the pitchers were careful to allow precisely 1 earned run per inning. Well, on average, they did. Mike Wright came back from the minors just in time to balance things out when Chris Heston somehow sloppily allowed only 3 er in 5.7 innings.
I have to admit that I had serious doubts when Jamie took Robbie Ray. “Does he know anything at all?” I wondered to myself. Apparently he does.
And I hadn’t heard that Ron was going into the wearable technology business. In this blog post alone, he’s advertising three different watches:
• the Ben Zobrist Comeback Watch,
• the Jay Bruce Redemption Watch, and
• the Edwin Jackson Come-Back Watch.
I’m interested, and certainly want to support Ron in his entrepeneurial efforts, but I think I’m going to hold out for the Arismendy Alcantara See I Told You So Watch.
AA’s Iowa batting line: .265/.329/.512/.841
AA’s Iowa batting line for June: .271/.329/.557/.886